The present invention relates to treating subterranean oil or gas groducing reservoirs to remove water from near well locations in which it can block or impede the flow of oil or gas into the well.
Pertinent prior disclosures include the following : U.S. Pat. No. 2,461,661, describes methods for preparing alkali metal borohydrides, and their capability of reacting with water to yield hydrogen, heat and alkaline inorganic salts. U.S. Pat. No. 2,872,982 describes treating a well by flowing an aqueous borohydride solution through a well conduit to or near a subterranean reservoir, flowing oil into the conduit to increase the hydrostatic pressure, flowing acid into the conduit to react with some of the borohydride and yield hydrogen that becomes confined within the conduit and displaces the borohydride solution into the reservoir, injecting aqueous acid into the reservoir to react with the borohydride in order to generate hydrogen and heat to loosen pore-plugging materials, and then pumping or bailing fluid out of the well to initiate production from the reservoir. U.S. Pat. No. 2,889,884 describes a well treating process for increasing the permeability of a subterranean reservoir by fracturing the reservoir and removing any water which is blocking the flow of oil to the well. It utilizes a non-aqueous solvent solution of a water-reactive metal hydride such as lithium aluminium hydride or an alkali metal borohydride which is flowed into contact with the water in the reservoir to initiate a violent reaction and cause "extensive" fracturing of the rocks while generating enough gas to provide a high velocity gas-discharge which will "sweep" any unreacted water from the reservoir into the borehole. U.S. Pat. No. 3,279,541 describes a process for removing flow-blocking paraffinic or asphaltic residues from well conduits and/or reservoir rocks by contacting them with a light paraffin solvent mixed with both a chemical solution which evolves heat on contact with water and an emulsifying surfactant, where the heat-evolving chemical solutions can be a solution of alkali metal borohydride.